Lions search for rare home win over Bengals

(SportsNetwork.com) - The Cincinnati Bengals and Detroit Lions both have elite
wide receivers that demand attention and can alter the course of a game at any
given moment.

But the two clubs also saw their supporting cast step up last weekend and will
need all hands on deck this Sunday at Ford Field, where the Lions look to
knock off the Bengals in Detroit for the first time in over 43 years.

The Lions and Bengals are both coming off Week 6 victories that have the clubs
at the top of their respective divisions. Cincinnati has sole possession of
the top spot in the AFC North with a 4-2 record for the first time since the
end of the 2009 campaign, while Detroit has posted the same record to sit in a
tie with Chicago atop the NFC North.

Detroit overcame a slow start last Sunday in Cleveland, where it outscored the
Browns 24-0 in the second half to roll to a 31-17 victory. Matthew Stafford
threw four touchdown passes, three of them to undrafted rookie tight end
Joseph Fauria.

Stafford threw for 248 yards on 25-of-43 passing while also getting picked off
once. Wide receiver Kris Durham led the Lions with eight catches for 83 yards,
while Reggie Bush ran for 78 yards on 17 attempts and added another five
receptions for 57 yards and a score.

Calvin Johnson, who sat out the previous weekend's 22-9 loss to Green Bay with
a knee injury, was held to three catches on 25 yards and targeted eight times
while playing fewer snaps than usual.

Fauria stepped up as all three of his catches went for scores and totaled 34
yards. He scored twice in the fourth quarter.

"There were some things we just didn't do well today in that first half," said
Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz, whose club trailed 17-7 at the half. "The
players knew it and knew that we just needed to make a stop and get a score to
start the first half and we were right back into it."

Safety Louis Delmas credited linebacker Stephen Tulloch with rallying the team
at halftime.

"I can definitely say that it was very emotional and very high. We came out
with a chip on our shoulders in the second half and we knew that we didn't
want to let our leader down and that was Stephen Tulloch," he said.

After playing four of their first six on the road, the Lions will host the
Bengals and Dallas Cowboys before going on the bye. Detroit has won its
previous two home games this season, 34-24 over Minnesota in Week 1 and a
40-32 decision against Chicago in Week 4.

"It is great to be at home. We have two in a row at home and we are going to
have to play our best to come out with two wins. We have two good football
teams coming in starting with the Bengals next week," said Schwartz.

History will be against the Lions, who are 3-7 all-time versus the Bengals and
have lost each of the previous four meetings.

Detroit hasn't beaten the Bengals since Nov. 22, 1992 in Cincinnati and not at
home since the first ever meeting between the clubs on Sept. 27, 1970.

The Bengals are 4-1 all-time in Detroit and won the most recent encounter
between the clubs 23-13 at home on Dec. 6, 2009.

Cincinnati has strung together back-to-back wins since a 17-6 loss in
Cleveland, besting the New England Patriots ahead of last weekend's 27-24
victory in Buffalo.

The Bengals allowed the Bills to score a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to
force overtime, but Mike Nugent won it for the road team with a 43-yard field
goal with 6:44 left in the bonus frame.

Nugent did miss a field goal late in the third quarter that would have given
his club a 17-point lead and it proved costly when Buffalo quarterback Thad
Lewis hit on touchdown passes of 22 and 40 yards. The first score came on a
4th-and-8 play.

"Obviously, we've got an opportunity to put the game out of reach and we kind
of failed to capitalize on that," said Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis. "And
then defensively, we gave up the big plays there; two big plays. We've got a
fourth chance to stop them on fourth down and we don't."

Rookie running back Giovani Bernard caught a 20-yard scoring throw and totaled
six catches for 72 yards, while BenJarvus Green-Ellis ran for a season-high 86
yards on 18 carries.

The victory was Cincinnati's first in three road games this season and the
meeting with the Bills marked a stretch of four of five as the visiting club
for the Bengals.

"For us we've got to take some of these games on the road," noted Dalton.
"It's big for us to come in -- we have to bring our own energy to a place
rooting against us and it is tough to play on the road."

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

With Johnson coming off an injury and questionable for last week's game before
ultimately playing, the Lions were going to need help in the passing game and
it came from the 6-foot-7 Fauria.

Fauria leads the Lions with five touchdown receptions despite making just
seven catches all season. His three scoring grabs this past Sunday were a
franchise single-game record by a tight end and he is already the seventh
tight end in club history to have at least five TD catches in a season.

The 23-year-old UCLA product saw an expanded role this past weekend because
Tony Scheffler was out with a concussion, but he certainly earned the trust of
Stafford going forward.

"Being a rookie, being young, you got to work your way up and earn that
trust," Fauria said. "I just talked to the quarterbacks this past week and
they are finally getting use to how I run routes because you know I am a
little longer guy, not choppy, I stride out a little bit. Earning that trust
with Matthew is tremendous and that's the reason why it happened today."

Both the Lions and Bengals have playmaking receivers in Johnson and Green,
offseason workout partners, but also count on a player in the backfield to
help the passing game. Detroit got that when it signed Bush this past
offseason, while the Bengals made Bernard a second-round pick this past draft
out of North Carolina.

Bush leads Detroit with 376 yards rushing on 78 attempts, a 4.8 average per
carry, and is second on the club with 261 receiving yards. He has found the
end zone a total of three times.

Bernard, meanwhile, has four total touchdowns and leads all rookies with 438
yards from scrimmage. Like Bush, he has shown an ability to turn a short catch
into a big gain.

Dalton certainly runs a more safer offense than Stafford as his 337 yards
passing marked his first 300-yard game since Oct. 14 of last season.

Getting Green on track helped. The playmaker had been limited to just one
touchdown catch the four previous games and went over 100 yards receiving for
the first time since his 162-yard, two-touchdown performance in Week 1.

Seven other Bengal players also had a catch and Cincinnati's 318 net passing
yards were its most since its sixth game of last season. Wideout Marvin Jones
had three catches for 71 yards, including a 10-yard score.

"We've got people who can respond when opportunities are created with extra
attention being paid to A.J. It really doesn't matter who we do it with, and
A.J. understands that as well as anyone," said Lewis. "The goal is to win the
game and it's a team game."

Stafford, meanwhile, set a franchise record with his 13th game of three-or-
more touchdown passes and Sunday marked the seventh time in his career he had
thrown at least four TD passes in a game.

Dalton's short game will need to keep an eye on Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy,
who had a pair of interceptions against the Browns. He is the first Detroit
linebacker to have two picks in a game since Mike Johnson on Dec. 10, 1995 and
Levy's four interceptions this year are a career high.

"He just studies the game," Tulloch said of what makes Levy successful. "He
studies the game very well. He is good in pass coverage and he makes plays. If
you see him on a day-to-day basis, he is in the film room, he is putting in
that work and I am glad that he is succeeding the way he is because he puts in
that work."

Sparked by Levy, the Lions are tied for first in the NFL with 10
interceptions.

Cincinnati's defense was boosted in Buffalo by the return of cornerback Leon
Hall (hamstring) and defensive end Michael Johnson (concussion). Hall hurt his
hamstring in Week 3, while Johnson missed one game.

The Bengals are tied for seventh in the NFL with 18 sacks, four each from
Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins. Dunlap had one of the club's five sacks versus
the Bills.

However, the Lions are tied for second in the NFL with just nine sacks
allowed.

OVERALL ANALYSIS

The spotlight will be on Johnson and Green and the two should have some extra
motivation given their offseason relationship. Johnson is still working his
way back from injury and was a limited practice participant on Wednesday.

Bush and Bernard can both break off big plays, but will be going against
defenses that will have inside information on stopping those kinds of plays.
That will put the game on the arms of Stafford and Dalton, with the former
better equipped to win a downfield game.